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Free With American Express: ShopRunner Free Shipping and Free Return

I avoid the mall during the holiday shopping season. Fighting for a parking spot is just too much for me. If I want something I just order them online.

Many online stores offer free shipping with a minimum purchase. Some waive the minimum order size from November to December. However, not many stores offer free return shipping.

Especially when it comes to clothing and shoes, if I’m not sure about sizes, I usually order two sizes, try them, and return one. Return shipping is getting quite expensive. Sending just a small 2-lb package costs $10. If the store has a local presence, I can do the return there, but then it involves going to the store and fighting for parking, which I wanted to avoid to begin with.

That’s where ShopRunner comes in. ShopRunner offers free shipping and free returns for many stores. Even if you can get free shipping from the store directly, the free return is a unique benefit for using ShopRunner.

Here’s a sample of stores ShopRunner works with:

Altogether there are over 100 stores working with ShopRunner. Clothing is the largest category, which is also where free return shipping is most useful.

The good thing is, if you have an American Express card, ShopRunner is free, not just free for the first year, but free indefinitely. It must be a “real” American Express card issued by American Express. American Express cards issued by Citi, PenFed, or Bank of America/FIA don’t count.

You just go to ShopRunner.com. Click on the small banner that says complimentary membership for eligible American Express card members.

You go through a verification process to show that you have an American Express card issued by American Express. They won’t charge your card.

When you are shopping online at a supported store, choose ShopRunner as the shipping method, which then prompts you to login with your ShopRunner user name and password. You would get free 2-day shipping, usually with no minimum purchase required. The order is then recorded at ShopRunner.

If you need to make a return, go to ShopRunner, find the order, and then click on return. You will get a free return label. You still fill out any return form the store wants you to fill out and you include it in the return package. You slap on the free return label and drop it off for UPS. That’s it.

In order to get free return shipping, the original order has to be shipped via ShopRunner. Therefore even if the store itself offers free shipping, you should still choose free shipping via ShopRunner.

I already used ShopRunner a few times this holiday shipping season. It works. Of course I wish it covers more stores, but since it’s free for just having an American Express card, I’m happy to use it wherever I can.

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“An “eligible Card” means an American Express U.S. Consumer or Small Business credit or charge Card that is not cancelled and that is issued to you by a U.S. banking subsidiary of American Express. Prepaid cards and products, American Express Corporate Cards and American Express-branded cards or account numbers issued by other financial institutions are not eligible.”

I recently had a negative experience with ShopRunner. (which I got for free with my Amex Delta card) I ordered shoes from reebok.com and altho promised in 2 days, they arrived in 7 days. The problem is not with ShopRunner itself, but with the business model where ShopRunner is disconnected from the vendor and has no power to make the vendor find the product and pack it. Once Reebok got around to doing that, yes, the shipping was 2 days.

It is NOT like Amazon Prime which is integrated, where Amazon takes responsibility for the entire process included packing.

During my 7 day wait, I tried to contact Shoprunner and Reebok. but I couldn’t get through to either. On day 6, with the Reebok status page still saying “waiting to be packed” I googled reviews for ShopRunner and found a 1.5 star overall rating with stories similar to mine, with it taking 7-10 days to receive product promised in 2. I think it’s all due to this disconnect between the vendor and ShopRunner with ShopRunner having no responsibility nor power for the actions of the vendor to get around to packing your order, and the vendor doesn’t seem concerned to help ShopRunner meet it’s promise.

If you didn’t use ShopRunner, it probably would’ve taken even longer for you to receive your order. If the items you ordered were back-ordered or if the store just had too many orders and they weren’t able to ship all of them on time, I wouldn’t blame ShopRunner for it.

American Express® Card Members can get free membership! What’s the catch?
There is no catch. To get your complimentary ShopRunner membership courtesy of American Express®, go to http://www.shoprunner.com/americanexpress and enroll an eligible American Express® Card. You never have to pay the $79 fee and you get to enjoy free 2-day shipping on thousands of brands.

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Please note that The Finance Buff has financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned here. The Finance Buff may be compensated if consumers choose to utilize the links located throughout the content on this site and generate sales for the said merchant.